Dear our beloved supporters, I am writing you to update you what is going on with our little village Pa Nor in Luang Prabang that all of you have been supporting. As part of the income generation, I have helped the villagers grow flowers since 2013 with horticulturists. The flower sold very well and now I just opened a flower shop – Malibarn – for two months now to buy the flowers from them. I attached a small film for your quick look. In a few weeks, I will send three experts to our village to plan for water irrigation system. This will be a long-term resolution for their flower plots. I have been supported by Mr. Pongrat and his wife for this initial assessment; however, we are still raising funds to help the villagers build the water irrigation. We are hoping to raise about 10,000 USD for buy sands, stones, pipes and water pump. Some of you have expressed your wills to continue helping us, please do kindly let me know if you are still interested. You may easily contribute by transferring money to the below or else please kindly email me for more details —-> pann@education-for-life.ch

I thank you all in advance of your very kindness and your continuous support for the kids‘ future.

I would like to update you the progress and summary of our lunchbox initiative.

Last year 2013 lunchbox initiative succeeded last month – with your support, we managed to provide lunches for 28 kids in Pa Nor primary school in Luang Prabang for the whole year. We grew vegetables ourselves with the kids taking responsibility to take care of their own vegetables. With your support, we included the tuition fees for those kids, provided some small money to the women who rotated to cook at the school. I visited the school at least once a month to monitor this initiative and do other village work.

In August last year, as part of income generation initiative, we brought in two expertsfrom the Royal project in Chiang Mai to teach the villagers how to grow flowers. We planted five types of flowers with every single family involvement in half a hector piece of land. Three months passed, the villagers started to sell the first batch with a very good price. The experts went back there again in November to conduct a series of training and help build a nursery. The second batch was sold out with better quality and better price. The villagers are very happy.

Continuation of the lunchbox initiative by themselves

The villagers had a meeting and made a decision among themselves that the revenue they got from selling the flowers will be contributed to continue the lunchbox initiative for this year, as well as contribute to the next buys of seeds for their flowers. My father also contributed some money to start digging a fish pond to compliment this lunchbox initiative.

Seeking for further support

We would like to thank you all of you for your support and inspiration you have given to me and our villagers. Those has written to me offering if they could continue support, I have responded that if you would like to continue support our village work, right now we are trying to raise some money (5,000 USD) to buy more seeds to plant more varieties of flowers this year. I and two experts from Royal Project Chiang Mai will be going to Luang Prabang soon for a meeting with the Village Committee and conducting another training. Good news In two months, I have found a perfect partner who is a florist and we will open a first flower shop in Vientiane. So by July, we will likely have a shop to support buying flowers from our village and generate some revenues.

Once again, thank you from the bottom of our heart. Please do write me if you would like more information.

Best regards, Pann Kamonrat PS Some photos attached for the flowers work and lunchboxes initiative.

Dear Adolf,It is really nice to have received an email from you and heard about your initiative, contribution and kindness you have extended to Lao PDR.Let me introduce myself and my work (on voluntary basis) a little bit. I am a Thai national, living and working full time in Lao PDR (I have a full time job with UNESCO working on cultural and creative industries). I moved to Laos in October 2010 following our small village adoption and below is a summary of what I have done on my holiday with a khmu village in Luang Prabang:We are a group of friends from different countries mainly Thailand, Germany, England, Australia, Austria, and French having myself as the main focal point and the coordinator. These friends are mobilized through my own circle of friends from schools and also from work. The majority of our contribution to the Village was skills and technical expertise as opposed to in monetary term (We do not give out cash to the villagers – this is our positive purpose). With that said, since we started initiating the work, the value we have contributed was approximately 15,000 USD in total excluding the cost of school building which was solely contributed by an external individual of 20,000 USD. We implemented all the work with our pure heart and on voluntary basis. This means we did not include our own expenses i.e. travel expenses, our salary/wages, or any other administrative expenses, into the contribution.Below, I have summarized the work we have been doing with the village ‘Pa Nor’ since February 2010. Through the Village Committee, whose Village Chief was Mr. Somphone back then and now Mr. Phonechai, we have been implementing the work with regular monitoring by meetings with different groups and actors in the village with the ultimate aim to assist the villagers to be able to help themselves to live in a better condition in a sustainable way.Summary of the work done by our groupIn Feb 2010, on my holidays in Luang Prabang with a friend, I came across this poor-conditioned primary school in the village and decided to build it back better for them.April 2010, on a few trips to the village, my British volunteer and me did a need assessment with the Village Committees then and their list of priorities was:

Water system

School

Meeting room (there is one existing already which was built by an EU in 2000)

Temple

Kindergarten

Through circle of friends, a French couple who wanted to contribute the finance to build the school was identified. With some technical contributions from friends, project brochures were designed and printed for free of charge.May 2010, we discussed about building a temple.June 2010, My Thai friend and me trekked to the land the villagers found an eye of the water. The villagers put a down payment to buy the land, and we helped them, together with financial contributions from every family in the village, buy the land. The Village Committees and the water specialist from the provincial authority assessed the water quality, the amount of flow and designed the intake cements and installation of the pipes and the central tank in the village. The villagers installed all the pipes down to the village. The new water system was in place in August 2010.July 2010, a new primary school was completed. School equipments were included and stationary was provided. First aid kits were distributed.August 2010, a proposal for skills capacity building was developed to seek funds from Toyota Foundation/Creative young leadership programme to build skills in making jewelry and paper out of the available raw materials in the village. The proposal was turned down. The proposal thereafter was submitted to betterplace.com to raise funds, but again it did not receive enough attention.April 2011, we helped them with increasing income generation project and raised funds from Germany to buy cows and established a cow bank in the village revolving funds. With 4,000 EUR raised, we managed to buy 14 cows. The assessment and the process of how the villagers selected the 12 poorest families to receive the cows, is available if you are interested.June 2011, a temple was built by the villagers themselves.July 2011, a school lunchbox was discussed with the Village Committees. Fund was being raised among a group of friends to adopt all the 28 kids in the school. Village Committees started the process of applying for a license to build a kitchen, with the provincial authority. Women union members in the village were interviewed to see their potentials to take part in the scheme. A mushroom farm idea was initiated for increasing an income for the whole village.December 2011, a police came to inspect the village regarding external contribution. I met with the policemen.April 2012, the water system had some problems. Our two German friends went to the village and inspected the problems. The village was nominated to hold a medical first aid center to be built by the provincial authority, and perhaps seeking for some external financial contributions. We were thinking of raising funds to support that.Sept 2012, the Village Committees received the license to build a kitchen. I contributed my own money to build the kitchen for about 1,700 USD. It took three weeks to build it and so was completed in the same month. My Austrian designer couple helped design the kitchen and its location.October 2012, my friend and me contributed small seed money for the school to grow vegetables on the land (the whole slopes of the mountain) as part of the lunchbox scheme. Many meetings were held with the Village Committees to establish a working group committee to oversee the lunchbox project. Unemployed women in the village was identified (most of them are the parents of the 28 kids in the school) to take rotation to come cook for the kids.November 2012, vegetable plots were finished (and very beautiful) and the kitchen was ready. 20 adopters (all of them are our friends) were identified and ready to support the lunchbox project. Documents was prepared as part of the project. Awareness raising and educational materials were being prepared. My Australian water specialist/community leader couple tagged me along to see the problem of the water system and collected the information to carry back for a water system engineer friend who will help suggest some solutions.December 2012, the kitchen was ready to be opened together with the launch of the lunchbox project. More information of the lunchbox is available upon request.December 3, 2012, the lunchbox project was launched successfully following a series of meetings with many different groups and actors in the school.January 2013, another income generation project was discussed with the Village Committee to grow flowers. A Botanist was brought to the village to assess the quality of soil, climate and temperate as well as to collect the samples of soils to see the possibilities.February 2013, installation of pipes from the village to the school was being prepared and discussions on building a fish pond was underway. Another water source will be explored of the possibilities to install pipes down to the village soon after the discussion. A hydro-engineer friend, her friend, a German volunteer and myself went up to the village to give some advice on the best location to build a tank to receive the water from the new source. The locations were suggested closed to the school and one location was identified.February 2013, I have also started a communication with the Lao Red Cross in Luang Prabang to see some possibilities to coordinate in the future for the villagers to receive a first-aid training and others.February 2013: I also met with the provincial government high ranking officer who accepted me well and appreciated all the work we have done. He also stated the priority for the Pa Nor village for a medical center and a kindergarten school. We discussed the possibility of me raising funds for that. I have not committed but will seek a way.June 2013: planning for flowers plantations with a support from Dr. Piyakaset (my mother’s student) from the Queen’s Botanical Garden in Chiang Mai Thailand.In the year 2013, more projects on income generation are on the way i.e. chicken farms. In addition, as part of the lunchbox project, more funds will be raised to support a series of nutrition trainings for the women who take rotation to come cook at the school. Seeking for some technical assistance from a friend from WFP and IEC. More initiatives are on the way i.e. hotel adaptation of a village, compos and recycling of water, first aid center, small plots for bio-gas etc.2014, an exit plan, and an extension of our assistance will be explored by encouraging this Pa Nor village to help their Khmu neighbouring villages.If you are interested in our work and would like to contribute to any areas identified by the Village committee and myself above, please do not hesitate to contact me… we can skype or discuss in more details how we can coordinate.Once again, Adolf, thanks so much for your email and let’s hope we can work together in a very near future.Note that my next trip to the village has been planned during my holiday 12-19 April.Best regards, Pann